: I was at a boat show ($250k and up) and I was laying up a modified
: "W" unfold on the deck of a kayak. A woman walked up and asked
: "Do you book match your strips?. I said "No." and she
: walked away.

: What's a modified "W" fold? You take a nice piece of redwood with a
: heart/sap wood boundary, cut into strips, and then lay out by unfolding
: the strips in a "WWWWWWW". now the surface looks like light
: arrows pointing in one direction and dark arrows in the opposite. If you
: started with 2 boards cut next to each other, you can book match the
: patterns fore and aft on the deck.

: If you picked the wood well, you now have a nice background for a subtile
: pattern either in the light areas or the dark areas. (A bit of white cedar
: intermixed with the light redwood looks nice.

: When you can lay up a 17' deck like that in 1 day, you are a "boat
: quality" boat builder.

: Photos don't do boats justice.

My first yak has only been if I can actually do it, and no real attempts at doing any of this level of thought was not even contemplated. (I really could kick myself for not keeping track of the strips as I ripped them. Some totally missed opportunities easily at least attempted.)

So cool idea of continuous bookmatching, and of flipping ends to match fore and aft.

Another idea may be to instead get three boards in a stack instead of two and rip the centre one and plan the 'arrow heads' so that they can be multiple widths. Assuming the ctr bd ends up as two 3/8in bds(actually 1/2 kerf less), and assuming a typ arrow is 2x3/4= 1 1/2in., you could end up w/ varying arrow heads of 3/4in, and 1 1/2in, and 2 1/2in, and 3 in, and 5 1/2in. Like you look and the ends and just trace W's of different sizes always keeping pairs together. And with a little trying you almost might be able to balance the bow and stern just using W's of what's left over.

Interesting idea, but way beyond what I'll ever be able to do.

-mick